Batu Night Spectacular (BNS)

Now Batu has a theme park, where people could bring their family to enjoy the ride, food and entertainment. The location is next to Jatim Park II at Oro Oro Ombo village around 45 minutes from Malang. It opens at 18:00, because they have many beautiful lights shining on every corner of the park. At weekend it's very crowded, you should come earlier unless you would have difficulty to park your car. You need to pay for the entrance fee cost Rp. 12.500,- at weekend or Rp. 7.500,- at weekdays.


I went there with my friends alumnus of St Maria Kediri elementary school. Although we're not children anymore, we enjoyed to ride some of the play. You have to pay for each play. Alibaba was my first ride, it's not too scary, just sitting on the bench contains of 2 rows and 2 columns, each bench could accomodate 4 persons. The bench would move slowly in ellipse vertically, then becoming faster and faster. When it's on the top, I tried to take picture, but the result was not good, it's shaking.


The next ride was flying chair, actually I didn't dare to take the right, but my friend convinced me that it's relax and fun. I pushed myself to try it. We sat on the chair with bare foot, because no stand at all for the feet. The chair backrest was also so low, you only could hold on the chain which hung the chair on the four corner. Each passenger sat on the chair one by one on a circle. When it's started, it's quite frightening, because your feet were flying without anything to stand. The movement became faster and faster, we flew on the chair in a circle. It's scary but also fun. When it stopped, 2 of my friends said that they won't ride it anymore, they're dreaded, even one of them closed his eyes when riding it.


There were some other riding that I didn't try such as ski ring road, crazy bike (turn the passenger upside down vertically, very scary), bom bom car, carousel, trampolin, gokart racing and some other play for children. If you would like to see the theme park from the height, you could ride a sky bike contains of 2 persons. You should paddle it to move faster on one rail to go around the park. You could turn the vehicle 360 degree to be able exploring the scenery.


Our next destination was lampion (paper lantern) garden, at weekend it cost Rp.10.000,-/person to enter. There were very colorful and beautiful. We welcome by animal band group lantern at the left side. In the middle there was a shell contains of pearl decorated with fountain and "lampion garden" letter bended above the orange shell. Continue walking through the path, you would find many kind of fish at the left and right of the aisle, such as aquarium. We kept taking pictures on the different decoration.


There was big "LOVE" decoration, my friend wanted to take picture with his wife, to make him look taller he stood on the sidewalk while his wife on the lower road. We took group photo here to express our feeling of our friendship :-) We had to be patient waiting for the street empty of people that almost impossible on the weekend.


Snow white and the dwarf with the castle were in the garden too. My friend's daughter was enjoying to become a model. When I took the scenery, suddenly she had appeared in the middle of my camera focus. She's so fast and her pose was nice to see. There was also a stage with life music from keyboard, and a magician was playing beside the stage. If you are thirsty or hungry, there was cafe which provided food and drink.


A wide pool full of goose, duck and lotus lantern with Eifel tower as the background was very beautiful. There was also some big flowers and tree lantern. A colorful air baloon was the highest lantern beside the Eifel. There were some benches with beautiful heart lantern as the background, it's suitable for the couple to take pictures.


Outside lampion garden, there's also ghost house with guard wearing skeleton clothes. A glass house with maze path was free to entrance. If you want heavy meal, you could have it outside the lampion garden, some restaurants such as Bethany were welcome you or if you want more various food, there was a foodcourt. If you like shopping there was night market, some stands providing toys, clothes for souvenirs, snacks, etc.

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Sweet Ambon - Ambon Manise

During my visit to Ambon, I got a chance to come by to their beautiful beaches. The first beach which I visited was Liang beach or Hunimua beach in Maluku island. The crystal clear water with a white sandy beach, a magnificent gradation of the blue color shows the deep of the sea with beautiful mountain as the background and white cloud on the sky created a very peaceful and beautiful scenery



There were some simple foodstalls on the beach if you need any food or drink, you could enjoy the beach by sitting on the soft white beach sand under the tree shelter. You also could bring food from home to eat together with friends. It's not too crowded at that time, some traditional small boat were also available for rent to bring you sailing through the sea. It's already noon time when I arrived there, so it's very hot and too shiny to ride the boat.


I didn't get bored at all to see all the spectacular scenery, taking some pictures to record the feeling and experience. Watching children jumping from the pier to race getting the ball on the sea, some of them were swimming on the beach, and a cute small boy was playing on the sandy beach while their parents having lunch on the mat under the tree shelter.


The time was ticking, my driver informed that we had to go back to the hotel soon, as we had to catch the flight. On the way to the hotel, we still had a chance to stop by at Natsepa beach. Its popular for rujak (various fresh fruits with peanut sauce mixed with palm sugar), so many seller foodstall along the pedestrian street on the beach. The beach was more crowded, there were many water sport such as jetski, banana boat, etc.


It's very cloudy when we arrived, the wave was harder than Liang beach. We sat in the hut drinking a young coconut ice while waiting for rujak. Suddenly it's raining very hard, all the benches became wet, the seller dropped the plastic shelter to cover us from raining. Rujak was served on the small plate with a toothpick for eating. It tasted very nice, fresh and yummy with many amount of peanuts.


If I had more time, I would stay longer on this beach to enjoy it. I'll go back someday to Ambon, the beaches were naturally beautiful and still virgin. There were some hotels on the beach, so you could stay there if you would like to play around the beach. For transportation, you'd better rent a car, because taxi was very rare and public transportation was not covered all destinations.

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Mangrove forest for Tourism in Surabaya

Do you know that there is a mangrove forest for tourism in Surabaya? At weekend I joined some of my friends to go there for hunting pictures. All of them like photography, so we try to find a good object to learn and practice. Our destination was at Surabaya East Coast, "Ekowisata Mangrove Wonorejo".



The road to the place was not too good, after following a narrow macadam road, we found bumpy and muddy soil road. It's very difficult if there's another car from the other direction. We had to move to the people's yard to enable passing through. Anyway you still could see many green rice fields and also some huts, good for photo objects. We arrived there around 09:00, the scenery was quite nice. We're waiting for the crew to clean up the boat, because there was some water in the bottom of the boat as it rained at the night before. The boat was quite beautiful with colorful paint, you don't need to row.


By paying return ticket Rp 25.000,- per person, you could ride the boat for around 30 minutes. They would bring you to the sea, then stop at the guard hut to enter the mangrove. They built a bamboo pathway for people to go through. Lucky it's not too shiny, so it's not too hot. The pathway would lead you to the gazebo on the sea. It's built by Pertamina, one of oil company in Indonesia for people enjoying the scenery for the mangrove and the sea.


The mangrove was quite fertile, unfortunately there were so many garbages among them. The pathway was not too long, on the way you could see many beautiful alley as result of the mangrove on the left and right side of the pathway. It's good for prewedding photos :-)


Finally we reached the gazebo, it's built from bamboo and hay for the roof. There were 2 gazebos connected by a small path of bamboo to each other. It's rather scary to walk on the bamboo. Sitting on the gazebo was so cool, you could see the sea view, and also enjoy the breeze, unfortunately no food or drink seller, so you have to prepare by yourself. Birds sometimes were flying from one mangrove's branch to other, but it's difficult to catch by the camera, because it's already too light.


After satisfied enjoying the gazebo and taking picture, we went back to the guard's hut waiting for the boat pickup. It took a long time, so we took some pictures there. Some people were fishing, they could get quite a big shrimp with wide red thin worm as the bait. It's a good place to escape from the crowded city, to get more tourists, the government should build a more convenience road for accessing to the place.

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Culinary tours in Bogor

Bogor is just an hour driving to South from Jakarta (around 60kms), it's popular as the rainy city because of the frequent rain showers. The city has a presidential palace and a botanical garden (Kebun Raya Bogor) – one of the oldest and largest garden in the world in the middle of the city. In the yard of the predential palace you could see many flock of deers relax or finding food on the greenish field. It's a nice amusement for people who pass by the palace. Some deers have long and branches anthers, it's very beautiful. On the road you would find many "angkot" (public transportation) passing by.



It's lunch time when we reached Bogor, we directly went to Gumati Cafe - Resto - Gallery at Jl. Paledang No. 26 & 28 Bogor 16122 (Telp. : 0251 - 8324318, 8313422 email : gumati-cafe@cafegumati.com) to have lunch. The restaurant ambience and concept is nice, unfortunately the cleaness was not maintained well, so many dust and cobweb on the wall and decoration. From the restaurant you could see the scenery of Bogor city including the river, because it's higher than the city. A blue swimming pool made the environment more comfortable. The restaurant was decorated with painting, ceramics and also some traditional statues from Bali, Sunda and Java. They provided Indonesian and Western food, we ordered Indonesian food, such as nasi timbel (rice with vegetables, meat, and fish), fried chicken, and green chili chicken, for beverage we ordered coconut lemon ice.


After lunch we went to Jl. Surya Kencana to buy bread, asinan and ngohiang. Although it's very crowded, lucky we could find the parking lot right in front of the store. The bread store was not too big, the package was also not too good, but the taste for its chocolate bread and cheese bread were delicious. My sister bought "combro" outside the store, it's a fried snack made of cassava filled with chili fermented soybean. It's spicy, but nice if you like spicy food. We went toward the alley to buy "asinan" (salted fresh fruits) to bring back to Jakarta for my colleague. It's very yummy and juicy to eat together with cracker noodle.

We stopped by a store which sold many Bogor traditional food, such as candied nutmeg, Bogor peanut, "bajigur"(hot drink made of coconut milk and spices), etc. Right beside the store there was a small restaurant popular for its' "Ngohiang Gang Aut", such as a sausage roll consisting of minced pork or chicken seasoned with five-spice powder, rolled inside a beancurd skin and deep-fried egg. I bought 1 chicken and 1 pork for bringing back to Jakarta. I attempted to try "Rujak Pengantin", it's very delicious.


Finally we would stop by Roti Unyil Venus, Komp. V Point No.1 Jalan Raya Pajajaran
Bogor, Jawa Barat 16142, Phone(0251) 8364008. It's a cake shop which sold petit bakery with various flavor, they called it "roti unyil" because it's very small, just one bite. They're filled with a big amount of chocolate, cheese, banana, sausage, vla, corn, etc. Some of them could keep for 3 days if you plan to bring back to your hometown. It's very crowded in the store, we had to queue to wait for the waitress serve us. Meanwhile I bought 10 pcs of Kue Ape (such as pancake made of wheat flour, rice flour and coconut milk) on foodstall in front of the store. It's my favourite snack, it cost Rp. 6.000,- for 10 pcs.


Shopping was our next destination, there were many factory outlets in Bogor, such as Bandung, but it's less crowded. We parked on one shop, just walking distance to the other stores. The clothes were nice in model and material, you could buy any clothes based on your budget, so many options to choose. We didn't feel it become dark, so we decided to stop the shopping.


For dinner, my sister brought us to Novotel, it's almost dark there. The hotel is quite far from the city, it's very quiet but the scenery is awesome. So many pool with water lily (lotus) on it, the yellow lights also made the scenery very interesting. A large green garden made the weather very fresh and cool. We were eating in the gazebo, ordered soups, calamari and hot tea. A live music with male and female beautiful voice singers accompanied us to wait for the order and also enjoy the scenery. When the live music ended, we're also ready to go home. We were very satisfied with the activities for eating and shopping.

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Memorable Elementary School Reunion in Kediri

Last 18th Dec 2010, I joined my elementary school reunion. It's a result from a persistent effort from one of our friend who could find the address and contact of our classmates. It's been 30 years since we graduated, most of us never met each other. One of the most helpful tool was facebook :-) From around 150 classmates, she could manage to encourage around 50 friends to join the reunion.


To make it more memorable, we decided to stay over one night, so there's more time to chit chat after a long time no see each other. Also not allowed to bring family, to make all of us comfortable to share the memory and not busy taking care of each family. Wisma Yohannes was our selection, it's very close to Pohsarang, the pilgrime place for Catholic in Kediri (such as Lourdes).


It took around 30 minutes from Kediri city by car, the road was quite narrow and rather step, it's higher than Kediri, so the weather's colder and fresher. Arriving there around 16:30 with our teachers who taught us 30 years ago. Some of them were looking the same young as they taught us in elementary school, as if time stopped. Some bedrooms in bungalow were prepared for them to rest before the ceremony would be started. They're rather dissapointed not informed that they could stay, they didn't prepare any clothes to change, so they had to go home at midnight after the ceremony.


Wisma Yohannes was beautiful and peaceful, it's quite huge. A beautiful garden welcome us, and a small beautiful chapel was at the side of the garden. You need to follow the path to reach the bungalow contains of 2-6 rooms at the left and right side of the path. The biggest bungalow was right after the chapel at the right side, it's arranged for the ladies of our group. The man would get bungalow near to the teachers's bungalow.


We took some group pictures on the gate with one of our energic teacher, currently he's still active as teacher in our school. After taking pictures and chit chat in the garden, suddenly it's raining hard, so we had to run and stop in the dining room to continue the conversation. Most of our friends had been changed, taller, older and of course most of us were fatter than before. It's fun sharing our story, some of our friend were very funny that made the environment cheerful.


The committe provided traditional sweet snacks, while waiting for the ceremony. It took place in the hall, then continuing with speech from some representatives (teacher and ex students from each class. Before having dinner, we prayed together, tumpeng (rice such as piramid), meat balls and satay were the main menu. It's ended by giving doorprize to the participant, and souvenirs to teachers. To record the memory, we took group pictures accompanying by live band till midnight. Some warm dessert were provided, unfortunately we're too full to eat the ronde (glutionous rice with ginger soup) and grill corn.


In the morning we had 'nasi pecel/tumpang' (vegetables with peanut sauce and rice), the favourite traditional food in Kediri. Some of us were taking more than 1 portion, it's very delicious to eat in front of the bungalow looking at the big swimming pool with beautiful mountain as the background. With different bright color T-shirt for each class, we took some group pictures with beautiful scenery around the hotel. It's a memorable event for me, thanks to the committee who worked hard to make it happened.


If you want to stay in Wisma Yohannes, please reserve in advance. People often use it for retreat. The price is quite competitive, because they also do it for charity, it's often fully booked. There's a beeline to go to Pohsarang, if you want to go to church or Maria cave for praying.

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Tasty Tender Deer Steak in Pakanbaru

Visit Pekanbaru as the capital city of Riau, in Sumatra last Oct 2010, we were welcome by the drizzle. The driver informed that in Riau the weather changed within hours, from very shiny day to heavily raining. The Sultan Syarif Kasim II international airport also serves flights to and from neighbouring countries such as Malaysia and Singapore. Maybe some of you has heard about Pekanbaru, because the city regular suffered from smoke due to forest fires during dry season that impacted to Malaysia and Singapore too. Some modern building were spread out in the city, such as library building built similar to an open book.



We stopped by for lunch in a restaurant called “Pondok Patin Haji Yunus”. They provided traditional Sumatra food from Pekanbaru such as Ikan Patin (catfish), the soft fish cooking with curry. The restaurant environment was nice, it’s a traditional house on the fish pond. A live music, simple band with a singer accompanied guests having lunch. Most of the food was spicy and hot, but they also provided fried chicken for anybody who didn’t like spicy food. The beverage name was very creative and funny, such as “es airmata pengantin” (bride’s tears ice), “es laksamana mengamuk” (admiral’s furious ice), etc. It’s raining hard when we were eating, but it’s only for a while.


The Great Mosque of An-Nur was one of places that we’d visited. It’s raining hard when we stopped at the front of the mosque, so we had to run to avoid getting wet. The Mosque was beautiful and big, we had to put off our shoes to enter the mosque hall on the second floor. A colorful Al Qur’an (the moslem bible) was provided for the guest. Arabic calligraph was carved with golden color on the pillar in the mosque. After satisfying enjoy the interior, we went down the stairs.


At the back of the mosque, there’s a traditional wedding party, it’s very colorful and cheerful. Lucky for our friend from Lausanne, because it’s a new thing for him to see the bride and bridegroom wearing the traditional Minangkabau wedding clothes. We peeped from the front door to see the party inside. Then we continue the journey to “Pasar Bawah”, a very crowded traditional market that you could find souvenirs, accessories, toys, snacks, etc. It’s very hot and stuffy, difficult to walk and shop, so we only stayed there less than an hour.


My friend and I stayed in the Labersa Grand Hotel and Convention, the garden was very beautiful with a group of elephants on the pool with fountain and small bridge. There was a restaurant with a huge aquarium up to the wall in the middle of the restaurant. The lobby was also nice at night with its lighting. On the top floor, there was a leisure place with coaches and also a bar with many gorgeous paintings on the wall. It’s a pity it’s so quiet, nobody visited or served the floor.


On the next day my friend from Pekanbaru offered us to taste deer meat, it’s quite far and going through some small roads, I don’t think I could find it by myself. Reaching the Kayu Manis Garden Resto and Gallery, we had to climb some stairs. We selected the place on the terrace, it’s bright and you could enjoy the scenery. For the menu he recommended to select deer steak served on the hot plate. It took quite a long time to cook it (around 30 minutes), so while waiting for it, I took some pictures to record the beautiful scenery. Some bungalows were provided with different name for guests who want privacy with their group. Different interior and design were applied for each room and bungalow. Indoor room was decorated with some paintings, ceramics, antiques, etc.


I ordered Martabe, traditional juice mixture of passion fruit and Dutch eggplant. When the meal was ready, it's looked very attempting and smelled good. My friend’s recommendation was 100% correct, the deer steak’s very delicious and tender, although it’s rather too spicy for me. It’s the first time for me to eat deer, definitely I want it again sometime. Don’t forget to visit this restaurant if you want to try the unique food.

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Central of beautiful jewelry in Banjarmasin

It took around an hour flight from Surabaya to Banjarmasin, capital of South Kalimantan. My friend and I arrived at Syamsudin Noor airport at lunch time, it's raining. The airport was not too big, from the plane we had to ride a bus to the airport building. I heard the new bigger airport was being built for the international flight. There are two parts of Banjarmasin, the old city and the new one, the government would move soon to the new part of the city.



Banjarmasin is famous as its jewelry, the central jewelry market is at Martapura. From the airport is nearer, around 30 minutes drive. We went directly there, because they close at 17:00 while we left airport at 14:00 already. No food and drink during the flight, we were starving, so we stopped by at Soto H. Anang in Martapura to taste the local food. We ordered the delicious yellow chicken sooup called "soto Banjar" and grill duck. You could eat soto with rice cake "ketupat" or rice.


After our stomach full we had a new spirit to shop the beautiful stones jewelry. Our driver brought us to a shop, Zamrud Plaza (Jl. A. Yani 125 Martapura, Phone: 62-511-4720751) not the market which's just a few block from our lunch place. The shop was quite convenience, it had a complete collection of stones, jewelry and Banjar handicrafts. If you lack of cash, there was also ATM in front of the shop. We shopped a lot there, no need to go to the market anymore. The price was much cheaper comparing to Banjarmasin city.


I was interested in crystal necklace with its bracelet, also some stone brooches. Bead wallets and small bag handicrafts were also the result of my hunting to give souvenirs to my relatives. If you like diamond, saphire, ruby, etc, they also had them, either as stone or already become accessories such as ring or earing. The salesgirls were kind enough, they didn't mind accompany us to select our preference. When I paid they were kind enough to give me discount.


Rattan Inn was the hotel where we stayed for a night, in the morning they entertained the guest with traditional music. The hotel was not too high, just 3 levels. My colleague in Banjarmasin office said that no high building in Banjarmasin because the land was swamp, so the foundation is not strong enough for building a high skycraper. The electricity was not good either, it's often off. In the hotel I experienced twice, at 17:00 and 22:00, it's not good for electronic stuffs, such as Air Conditioning, TV, refrigerator, etc.


At night we had dinner around 20:00 in Rudy H, a seafood restaurant at A. Yani Km 3.5 no.285 Banjarmasin. We ordered some fish, e.g. grill patin, fried lais, and seluang, and sweet sour shrimp & vegetable. While waiting for the food, we ate the delicious amplang (the fish cracker from Banjarmasin). The fish was nice, it's fresh, piquant and sweet. The restaurant was decorated with antique stuffs such as ceramics, and old cupboard. A life music with a singer and a keyboard player entertained us during the dinner.


Banjarmasin's waterfront of Martapura River. The city is laced with flood-prone waterways, and many houses are built on rafts or stilts over the water. Many of such waterways are also used for travel, using relatively small rowboats (only major rivers are accessible by larger speedboats, tugboats, longboats, and barges). Our driver offered to sea the floating market at 05:00 in the morning. I prefered to sleep because it's an hour earlier than Surabaya time, so it meant that I had to wake up before 04:00 if I wanted to see.


If you like stone jewelry, definitely you must visit Permatapura. The price was so competitive, you won't regret to visit it. You also could visit the place where they make the jewelry to polish it to become a beautiful ornament.

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